A small non-violent protest against the development – some
would say over-development – of Istanbul’s Taksim Square
has turned into the Turkish equivalent of the Tahrir Square protests in Cairo, Egypt, that brought down Hosni Mubarak, that country’s
pro-US dictator. What do the Taksim Square protesters want? Or,
rather more to the point in this case, what don’t they
want?

Initially, the protests were over the plans by the Turkish
government to turn over a public park and surrounding small shops
to its crony capitalist allies. Politically-connected
“entrepreneurs” got the green light from authorities to destroy
one of Istanbul’s last green spaces to build a shopping mall and a
historic recreation of the old Ottoman military barracks in what is
the epicenter of Istanbul’s crowded urban scene.

A spontaneous protest grew up over the plans, with a non-violent
resistance campaign launched on the site by locals fed up with the
transformation of their city into a combination tourist trap and
symbol of Ottoman revivalism. The response of the authorities was
immediate and violent: water cannon, tear gas, rubber bullets,
nightsticks, and armed soldiers clearing the streets. One would
think the demonstrators were calling for a revolution – and by the
time the protests had reached their second or third day, indeed they
were.

“Erdogan resign!” is the rallying cry, referring to Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, the gruff-spoken Turkish Prime Minister and head of
the “moderate” Islamist ruling party, which calls itself Justice
and Development (AKP). Erdogan, for his part, has blamed the
protests on “drunks,
extremists, and Twitter,” declaring that he has the
support of the Turkish majority and refusing to deal with the
protesters’ demands. “He’s not been behaving rationally at
all,” says
Gareth Jenkins, an Istanbul resident and academic affiliated with
John Hopkins University. “He appears to be becoming almost
delusional and refusing to accept the reality that these protests
are mainly spontaneous and are being organized by small groups of
people who’ve never engaged in politics before.” Erdogan is
apparently taking the Turkish equivalent of the old Richard Nixon
“silent majority” line, disdaining the tens of thousands who
have taken to the streets across the country as “bums,” and,
inevitably, referring to them as “terrorists.”

Those “bums” may bring him down yet.

What started out as a local protest against the crony capitalist
schemes of the municipal Istanbul government has now turned into a
nationwide rebellion against the increasingly repressive policies of
the AKP national government, which started to take a turn toward a
more robust form of Islamism after Erdogan’s 2011 election. A
month before the protests, laws restricting the sale and consumption
of alcohol were put on the books: the state-owned Turkish Airways
issued a new rule forbidding stewardesses from wearing red lipstick (other colors are presumably okay). And if you’re riding on the
Ankara subway, and you find a sudden urge to kiss your Significant
Other, forget it, bud – because closed circuit TV is watching you,
and you’re busted.

What has particularly stuck in the person-in-the-street’s
craw, however, is the scale and intent of a series of
landscape-changing construction projects, such as the building of a
replica of the old Ottoman barracks, that a) project the past glory
of the old Ottoman imperium, and b) enrich the well-connected
corporate cronies of the AKP. Erdogan’s arrogance hasn’t helped,
either, and the government’s reaction has given the protests a
very broad character, with leftists shoulder-to-shoulder with
right-wing nationalists and Kurdish separatists, all of them
standing united against the baton-swinging water cannon-shooting
police.

Another point of contention has been Turkey’ssupport to the
Syrian Sunni jihadists waging a terrorist campaign in neighboring
Syria. The upfront declarations by Syrian rebels that they want to
create an Islamic state has provoked opposition to Erdogan’s
“pro-American” (i.e. pro-jihadist) foreign policy, which has the
Erdogan government providing the rebels with bases inside Turkey as
well as arms and military training. This is seen by worried
secularists as merely an extension of the AKP’s policies of
increasing Islamization at home.

Turkey has long been held up as a “model” for the region by
US policymakers. On a trip to Turkey during her tenure as Secretary
of State, Hillary Clinton enthused
over the country’s value as a role model:

“I think across the region, people from the Middle East and
North Africa particularly are seeking to draw lessons from Turkey’s
experience. It is vital that they learn the lessons that Turkey has
learned and is putting into practice every single day. Turkey’s
history serves as a reminder that democratic development depends on
responsible leadership, and it’s important that that responsible
leadership helps to mentor the next generation of leaders in these
other countries.”

Whether this will be seen as an echo of her praise for and
support of Mubarak– a “friend of my family” – even when the
Tahrir Square protests were in progress remains to be seen, but I
wouldn’t blame her for merely reflecting the conventional wisdom
in Washington when it comes to the Erdogan regime. This
Brookings Institution paper holding up the AKP and
Erdogan’s Turkey as “pragmatic” (i.e. good) Islamists, as
opposed to the baddies we’re supposedly battling, is a perfect
example of how boilerplate BS substitutes for real thinking about
foreign policy in the Imperial City. In the author’s view, the
AKP, rather than being Islamist, is a “passive secular” force,
whatever that means: except now, it appears, the “passive” AKP
is getting aggressively Islamist. The Turkish regime, we are told,
represents a “middle ground” between the Iranian theocracy and
the “assertive secularism of Turkey’s past.” This is an odd
formulation – putting the Turkish and Iranian regimes on the same
Islamist continuum – since the militantly Sunni AKP considers the
Shi’ite mullahs who rule Iran to be heretics. Indeed, Turkey is
the northern linchpin of the US-brokered Sunni anti-Iranian
alliance, and, as a member of NATO, will no doubt be an eager
participant if and when the Western powers strike Tehran.

The whole thrust of US foreign policy in the Middle East since
George W. Bush’s second term has been the “Sunni turn,” that
is, the attempted creation of a countervailing force to the
so-called Shi’ite
crescent, a region at the epicenter of the Middle
East where Muslims of the Shia sect are in the majority. It was
Jordan’s King Abdullah who raised
the alarm in a 2004 speech, warning of the
“destabilizing” effects of rising Shi’ite influence from
Beirut to Baghdad. Integrate this with the news that the US has just
sent a Patriot missile battery and a squadron of F-16 jet fighters
to Jordan – where US “advisers” are training Syrian rebels –
and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that Washington is readying
itself to massively intervene in the Muslim world’s increasingly
vicious religious civil war.

Syria is the latest theater in that war, and Western backing of
the Sunni Islamist brigades fighting the Ba’athist regime is but
the latest manifestation of longstanding US policy in the region.
This harebrained policy is a continuation of the Bushian strategy,
conceived at the height of the Iraq war, to engage with Iraq’s
Sunnis, bribing and otherwise cajoling them into turning against Al
Qaeda-in-Iraq. This was the whole strategy behind the “surge,”
and it supposedly worked – except for the fact that Iraq is being
torn apart by renewed sectarian conflict. But that’s not a bad
thing if your strategy is to divide and conquer.

The animating idea behind America’s machinations in the region
is to romance the “moderate” Sunni jihadists, use them as an
instrument in the ongoing regime-change campaign against Iran, and
compete for Al Qaeda’s base of support. The big problem of
this too-clever-by-half grand strategy – which bears all the
hallmarks of a classic neoconservative delusion – is that it
invariably brings us into the position of supporting the very people
we are supposedly fighting, the vaunted “terrorists” of Al
Qaeda, against whom we launched the Global War on Terrorism in
the first place.

The “Sunni turn” was not only continued but pursued even
more aggressively by the Obama administration: in Libya, where we
installed a jihadist regime and wound up with Benghazi: in Egypt,
where we threw Hillary’s dear friend Mubarak overboard and cozied
up to the “moderate” Muslim Brotherhood, and now in Syria, where
we are providing the lung-eating jihadist rebels with “non-lethal”
aid.

The turmoil in Turkey undermines this strategy, hopefully
fatally. For the demonstrators in the streets of Istanbul are
raising the flag of the founder of the Turkish republic, Kemal
Ataturk, whose “Young Turks” took the rotted corpse of the
decomposing Ottoman Empire and turned its Anatolian trunk into a
modern state, preserving Turkish sovereignty against the vultures of
European colonialism in the wake of World War I. Fiercely
secularist, Mustafa Kemal, known as Ataturk, razed mosques, banned
women from wearing the hijab, and dragged Turkey, kicking and
screaming, out of the Middle Ages and into the Europe of the
twentieth century.

The Kemalist conception of democracy was something we would not
recognize: upon the establishment of the secular Turkish republic,
there was only one party, and that was the Kemalist party. Turkey
had the forms of democracy – elections, a parliament, a
constitution – but none of the reality. Little has changed since
those days, except now the anti-Kemalists are on top, using the
power of the Turkish state to smash their opponents and raise the
old Ottoman symbols over Istanbul.

This rebuilding of the old Ottoman barracks is important symbolically. Mustafa Kemal fought against both the Europeans and
the Ottomans in the country’s war for independence: the defeated
sultanate and the victorious Europeans had teamed up to divide
traditionally Turkish lands and feast on the spoils of the Great
War. The Kemalists raised an army, crushed the Ottomans, drove back
the invading Greeks and Bulgarians, and – with aid from Soviet
Russia – forced the Europeans to sign the Treaty of Lausanne,
which recognized Turkish sovereignty. To rebuild the Ottoman
barracks is to raise the banner of the Kemalists’
ancient enemies in the middle of Istanbul. No wonder they’re
rioting.

The Kemalist rebellion in Turkey represents a direct challenge
to American policymakers, who revel in the conceit that they’re
bringing a regime of tolerance and “civil society” to the Middle
East and North Africa. Yet the implementation of the “Sunni turn”
has allied the US State Department with the worst Islamist
extremists in the region. Until now they’ve been able to pass off
Erdogan as a paragon of the “moderate” Islamists they hope will
triumph in Syria, but that myth will surely not survive the week as
demonstrators are brutalized in the streets, with one already
killed.

Turkey is a key link in the chain of alliances we’ve been
building as a counter-weight to Iran: it is the launching pad for
the Syrian regime-change operation, and a key facilitator of arms
and cash to the rebels. If the Erdogan government should fall –
or, if, say, the Turkish generals once again play out their historic
role as the guarantors of public order, and stage another coup –
Washington’s Syrian gambit is over.

NOTES IN THE MARGIN

We’re finally approaching home stretch with the spring
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please do me a favor and put me out of my misery by helping us
finally put an end (for the moment) to this seemingly endless
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about $15,000 short, and that after today we’re going to stop
running front page appeals at the top. But that doesn’t mean we’ve
made it, because we haven’t. Unless we raise the remaining amount,
we will have to cut back on our staff, our coverage, and our plans
for expansion at a crucial time. You can bet your boots that $15,000
isn’t going to pay for posh conferences in Hawaii – who do you
think we are, the IRS? Which brings me to an important point: if you
don’t make a donation, you’ll be donating (involuntarily, to be
sure) to the IRS. Your contribution to Antiwar.com is 100 percent
tax-deductible – and wouldn’t you rather give it to us than to
them?

You
can check out my Twitter feed by going here.
But please note that my tweets are sometimes deliberately
provocative, often made in jest, and largely consist of me thinking
out loud.

I’ve
written a couple of books, which you might want to peruse. Here
is the link for buying the second edition of my 1993 book,
Reclaiming the American
Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement,
with an Introduction by Prof. George W. Carey, a Foreword
by Patrick J. Buchanan, and critical essays by Scott Richert and
David Gordon (ISI
Books,
2008).

You
can buy An Enemy of the
State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard (Prometheus
Books,
2000), my biography of the great libertarian thinker, here.

Lets make it clear here.., the ground politics of Egyptian regimes was not based on democracy nor the present islamization of Egypt government is…, the people of turkey don't want to become another islamized by yet another puppet regime as the Egyptian regime is.., when it come to the past and present regimes pupping up like a mushroom all over Middle East and northern Africa and their dictatorial system nothing has changed.., they are if not worse not less dictatorial.

Turkey is not Egypt, the constitution is about democracy and the present government is elected democratically.., however, what Erdogan presenting is his ego..,his egoism is his politics.., not the constitution nor the principals of a democratic system…, he wants to become the next regional empire orchestrated by the Saudis with NATO and USA militarism regime deepening the problem for the people in Middle East.

Carpenter

You are blaming Erdogan for "egoism" and "regional empire" aspirations? Turkey was dominated for decades by a pro-globalist, pro-Israeli elite backed by the U.S. that oppressed the religious people in the country. They built a large state for that purpose.

Despite the intense oppression, including the smashing of candidates' windows at nights and candidates being fired from their jobs, a moderate Islamist party could finally form and gain enough publicity to be elected. Predictably they are called Islamo-fascist. Just like the Shia Iranians these Sunni Turks have always hated.

It is really bothersome to peg down these Middle Easterners comfortably. Why can't they all be black-and-white? Fanatic Muslims – no complicated Shia/Sunni divide – attacking valiant pro-Western, pro-democracy secularists. Ah, that's the neocon vision, sold to the ignorant. Too bad it isn't true. It is the secularists, more accurately the pro-Israeli globalists, who are the oppressors. Now that they have lost elections in Turkey, their footsoldiers are rioting. That's the truth behind these riots.

John

well they were trying to set up a Neo Ottoman tourist trap, it is fitting to beat the crap out of people, they just need to set that up of the tourists, you know, like universal studios….., as we know how many people the Ottoman Empire killed, especially in the late 1800,s and early 20th century.

Parbes

Sorry to rain on your parade, idiot, but I couldn't let these asinine remarks pass without a response: The U.S. neocons fully support Erdogan and his brand of pro-NATO/pro-Saudi/pro-Muslim Brotherhood Islamism, NOT the secular opposition people, in Turkey. In fact, he and his AKP party first came to power largely due to the behind-the-scenes help and machinations of the neocon-dominated U.S. government during the time of Bush a decade ago

john g

Hmmm, maybe. There is a whiff of colour revolution in the air. The educated urban Turks are genuinely sick of Erdogan's neoliberalism and his anti-Syrian antics, but that doesn't mean that other agendas aren't at play.

Ah, Justin, Turkey, like an onion, has many layers. In our conflicted world there are many views, perhaps 7.5 billion of them!

RickR30

If this becomes a revolution then maybe Al Qaeda and all the other terrorists will turn around and attack the Turkish government. One of those situations that not even the most brilliant neocon had planned. Oh the dilemma that would be for the US– support "democracy" / the "rebels" aka Al Qaeda-in-Turkey or their puppet Erdogan? So far, dictatorial US puppets have all ended badly. Such a tough gig it is to be the world's leader, ain't it? Also curious on what camp all the overly proud yet easily offended internet Turks will end up.

Carpenter

You realize that Turkey's government is supporting the partly Islamist rebellion in Syria, right? While the rioters oppose that aid?

RickR30

Yes, and? The terrorists aren't exactly ideologically consistent. Today's scenario can quickly change, and what some may not expect may happen.

Bob D

Perhaps. But as long as they are fighting and weakening each other in Syria, that makes the Neocons and the Likuds happy.

Ben_C

This is what happened: originally a small group of peaceful protesters tried to exercise what they 'thought' to be their 'democratic right' of 'free expression' by organizing a harmless social "sit in"/camp-out at one of Istanbul's last city Parks…a park the autocratic, tyrannical, Mad Dictator Erdogan recently decided to level in order to make way for his shopping center stylized as an Ottoman military barracks. As a side note: it's been reported some of the trees slated to be cut down are over 600 years old.

Anyway…this seemingly simple display of freedom and benign dissent by the peaceful protesters somehow threw the raving lunatic Mad Dictator Erdogan into an uncontrollable hysterical tirade of seething rage, at which point he immediately ordered the Turkish security services to brutally crackdown on the peaceful protesters.

The subsequent broader, and now nationwide, uprising is all primarily a direct reaction to Mad Dictator Erdogan personally, and his excessive, inhumane, and currently ongoing brutal physical crackdown of the peaceful protesters and suppression of their freedoms and natural rights… Different people have different reasons for participating in a protest/uprising; however, the reaction to the brutal crackdown of the peaceful protesters by the Mad Tyrant Dictator Erdogan seems to be universal among the revolutionaries…and the (only) unified, clear, message now seems to be: 'Erdogan must go'…

CNN International reports:

"The protests have spread to 67 of Turkey's 81 provinces, according to the semi-official Anadolou News Agency."

Justin has noted inn the past that US policy in the Middle East is nothing more than an implementation of the Neocon Likud invention called "Operation Clean Break", The idea is to "secure the realm" for Israel by burning down the neighborhood, ie creating a bunch of weak and hopeless "failed states" surrounding the Motherland..

That's exactly what's happening in nation after nation… The only small problem is that the whole enterprise is now shaping up as a superpower confrontation between the West, and Russia and to certain extent, some very pissed off Chinese generals. Turkey is a further complication.

The fun starts when the Russians decide to ship s-300 anti-missile systems to Assad. Looks as though that's delayed for at least a year. We'll see.

richard vajs

ictus92,
I think that you are right – we are willing to destroy everything from Libya to Turkey just so that those jerks in Israel can continue their nickel-dime theft of Palestinuian land. And I won't shed a tear when the civilized world punches us in the nose for our evil interference.

Carpenter

Always remember: it is not "our" interference. Americans, British, Germans, Swedes, etc never had a say in whether soldiers and tax money would be used to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. This is the doing of the Israel-loyal globalists. They can do it because all the big U.S. media owners are on their side. They helped each other buy up the media over the decades, and now we see the result.

Why did the US dispose of Hussein? A secular Sunni. He didn't support terrorism and kept an iron hand on the disruptive elements of Iraq. The Sunni's always have been at odds with the more mystical Shia's. The loss of the Ba'athists has left a gaping hole in the region in which radicals from al Qaeda and others can simply walk through.

The so called FSA are a motley crew of extremists who wish to foist upon the people of Syria the barbaric Sharia Law. And the west is helping them. Assad is no angel but he kept order.

Turkey is beginning to show the ugly side of Islam by passing laws limiting rights according to the Sharia. And the west is helping them.

Saudi Arabia already enforces Sharia Law. And the west is helping them. Libya is on its way to becoming a Islamist state as is Egypt. And the west is helping them as well.

The west is creating more intolerance in the region thus giving terrorists an excuse to wreak havoc on the west.

Turkey after Ataturk was a beacon. A light into the new century. Now the west is trying to douse that light and send the Turks back into the darkness.

The world is exceedingly wicked.

Wazir

'Turkey after Ataturk was a beacon. A light into the new century.'

Kemalist Turkey was a one-party, army-run crony-fascist mediocrity. Before calling Erdogan a 'Mad Dictator', get some sense of proportion. He has won, by landslides, three times, and on his watch, Turkey has managed to become significant, prosperous, proud, and more in touch with its heritage.

Prior to this, it was only a source of cannon-fodder for Nato, run by people with delusions of European-ness.

Sure the police were heavy handed with the original tree-huggers. Would you hold Obama personally responsible for everybody tased at the various Occupy protests? Considering that previous governments used to 'disappear' people (incidentally the governments of the parties currently protesting), they are having it very easy. Previous governments, including Ataturk's, had more in common with Pinochet than Allende. Turkey was no beacon, but a squalid and depressing place.

There is class dynamic here which has to be pointed out. Erdogan has the support of the Anatolian lower middle class, which are religious, and are fueling Turkey's present economic dynamism. Under previous dispensions, they were excluded, ridiculed, banned from jobs, and frequently jailed. Under Erdogan, they have prospered, and have made Turkey more prosperous than ever before. Accusing Erdogan of cronyism is rich, considering he is more clean than the crooks that preceded him (and most recently, crashed the old lira, which was nothing like the New Turkish Lira).

The so-called 'Shariah' that has caught everybody's imagination is a red herring. All Erdogan really did was limit public alcohol consumption between 2200hr to 0600hrs. The UK has stricter rules. But this is the actual trigger. To the majority of Turks (as elsewhere), drinking is a vice, shameful, nothing to brag about. The majority don't. But Kemalists make it a point to drink… publicly and in excess, and use it as marker of 'being civilized', in addition to sneering at anything from the Ottoman era, and forever saying they are European no matter how many times Sarkozy would correct them. By banning unfettered drinking (for which there are many good reasons which no one can deny), these 'liberals' feel that their clout is disappearing, and their prejudices against the majority would no longer be the establishment position.

So, in short, the protest have little to do with 'liberte, fraternite, egalite', or with justice or freedom. It has everything to do a defunct and discredited cult of fascists who gladly instigate a coup followed by a pogrom to protect their ill-deserved privilege.

Kemal offered the Western powers of the time all the Ottoman empire possessions and ended the Caliphate. Such a good guy. Sit, boy!

Parbes

Ataturk did not "offer the Western powers of the time all the Ottoman empire possessions", you idiot… Learn a bit of actual history, before scribbling submoronic comments on your keyboard! The Ottomans had already lost whatever possessions they still had, by entering and losing World War I on the German side. Ataturk fought AGAINST the Western powers as an Ottoman miltary commander during World War I, and was the main Turkish commander in the victorious Dardanelles battles against the invading British/French/ANZAC forces. Then after the end of World War I, he prevented the total dissolution and colonization of what is now Turkey, by leading a national liberation war against the invading Western armies from 1919 to 1922 – at the end of which he established the Republic of Turkey and became its president.
As for ending the Caliphate – you can only consider that to be a "bad thing", if you're an Islamist yourself.

John

One could argue that the abolition of the Caliphate (which was a powerless figurehead by the 1920s anyway) actually increased radical Islamism in the region. The Muslim Brotherhood was founded a few years later as Sunni Islam was bereft of even a symbolic leadership. For a hierarchical religion such as Islam to do away with its leader was heretical to some number of Sunnis, the Brotherhood included. The forefathers of al Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic Jihad were possibly among those (Qutb).

conumishu

Listen, oh, you lesser magnificent. Officers not executing orders in times of war are shot. Kemal (that was his name, since he became, oh, "father of the turks" later) fought in the army of his country against the enemies his country was fighting against. That it happened to be the (some of the) Western (oh, ultrabrilliant you) powers, tough luck, was not a merit (or sin, btw) or endowed him with a certificate of turkish purity. He did his best, commendable – even if he wasn't the "main Turkish commander" at Gallipoli.

Of course Turkey fought on the losing side, but, as Germany wasn't militarily defeated, so wasn't Turkey. There were alternatives to Kemal, even if some, oh, so evil like Enver pasha, the "genocidalist" in chief of the genocide Turkey doesn't accept it happened, (wonder why?).

He "prevented" what wouldn't have been an issue anyway, the presence of western (or western backed) contigents would have been swept away fast once blatant traitors were removed. What Kemal insured as a leader of a genuine national movement was what Turkey would have achieved anyway, keep the territories of the "turkish soil" (well, kurds are not arabs, neither the armenians and so on, some soils are less turkish if they are more french or english). French, Italians & others had no forces to partition Turkey. Possibly keeping the remaining Arab possessions wasn't worth the costs for Turkey, but was doable or at least some thought so. The "non-mentionable" Enver thought of a pan-Turkish empire also (looks a bit like Erdogan's vision, imo). Bur once you accepted in a treaty that you give up your rights (as recognized prior in other international agreements, not necessarily morally justifiable) your future claims become very iffy. Well, French and British and Italians certainly liberated the locals, didn't they?

His role was to reform Turkey to the Western style (deep, beyond the technological or administrative improvements) and destroying the Caliphate was a good thing… for the West, not for the muslims. But, hey, what's good for the West must be good for everyone.

I'm a Christian, not a neocon shill and from a country who fought Turks bitterly, but I don't hate them at all and, contrary to filthy talking activists, I wish them well, not "springs" to nowhere.

Parbes

If you're going to babble, at least babble something that's grammatically coherent and understandable, not a bunch of stuttering gibberish! I presume you're from one of the Balkan countries that were historically brutalized by the Ottomans – so then WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO SMEAR ATATURK, you idiot? It was HE who finally abolished the Ottoman Empire and set up the new Turkish Republic as a secular nation with the principle of "peaceful existence with all neighboring nations". You'd rather have an Islamic Ottoman state (or a neo-Ottoman like Erdogan, as the case may be) continuing its attack and enslavement of the "infidels" of the Balkans and Europe, then? And he abolished the Caliphate for the benefit of HIS OWN people (whom he wanted to be a secular, modern, progressive nation) – NOT for the benefit of "Western powers"! It is not Ataturk's fault that there has been a lot of backsliding in Turkey from his reforms and his founding principles of the Republic, in the decades since his death – and ALL of that backsliding has happened under pro-U.S., pro-NATO, "anti-commie", rightwing governments. The present Erdogan regime is merely an example of advanced rot!

conumishu

Well, at "idiot" I stopped reading, what would be the use anyway. Ottoman Empire was practically out of the Balkans before WW1, so no one cared (like no one cares now) who was going to rule over the Turks. No one fears a restored Turkish imperialism but neocon puppies don't like a more independent Turkey, that's all.

Heydar

lol. Genocide! Come now, that didn't really happen. Besides it was century before

And don't besmirch the god and father of Turkey. Learn some history. Or a true believer will come and mock you with TRUE Turkish FACTS and not just made up ones! And do as the state department says and stay out of Turkey.

nomange

Turkey's prosperity right now is deceptive, and has been primarily due to a real estate bubble, which has been causing economic pain to those sectors unable to keep up with rising housing prices. Erdogan's family and cronies are heavily invested and have been cashing in on it, through highly lucrative contracts obtained because of their political office or access- for example, the mall project in Taksim Square would be developed by a company owned by the Mayor of Istanbul, and Erdogan's son-in-law has major contracts to develop north of Istanbul. Erdogan has also been attempting to perpetuate his personal political power by amending the constitution, in order to transfer power to the Presidency, which he will be seeking after his term as Premier expires.

Erdogan's misadventures in Syria, with Turkey as the US-NATO's proxy and pawn, have caused very real consternation and anger in the country, especially since the Turkish and Syrian peoples had previously co-existed in peace and in the border area had ethnic ties. The general perception is that this war would not have happened but for the U.S. and NATO. As for the economic costs and social dislocation in Turkey arising from the war, there are now hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria in border villages; and the has been further inflamed by the terrorist attack some weeks ago killing almost 50 people. While Erdogan blamed it on Syria, it was later proven to have been caused by the jihadists. Ironically, the Turkish people are now chafing under the same type of authoritarian rule blamed on Assad, that allegedly triggered the Syrian crisis, namely failing to listen to the appeals of demonstrators, and instead responding with a harsh measures. While Assad's popularity is now soaring, Erdogan's has begun to plummet.
Also, Erdogan has been extendinv his control over even individual religious and social matters normally off limits to a secular government- as an example, the recent prosecution of Fazil Say, one of Turkey's most famous pianists, for public statements allegedly "insulting" Islam; or, the imprisonment of over 75 journalists for independent reporting critical of the government, or the prosecution (and, in some instances, vigilante killings) of historians and journalists who openly wrote about the Armenian genocide.

So, the disaffection with Erdogan is real, not superficial, and it is based on many reasons.

Parbes

GREAT explication of the realities in today's Turkey. Would that this information could be spread to all the sheep-like populace of North America and Europe!

Parbes

Shut your trap, you lying sharia propagandist. You and your ilk are a disgrace to any decent person on earth!

Parbes

Sorry; but this was supposed to be a reply to the Muslim troll "Wazir", above. Something is wrong with this site's comments board!

Bob D

crookedwalk,

Need I remind you that the US was allies with Hussein for decades and for all the reasons you point out? But Hussein committed the mortal sin of SCUD attacks on Israel. Not very effective, but the symbol of such behavior by a soverign government had to be destroyed to keep the Likud-in-America Sheldon Adelsons happy. Supercedes everything. Can't have any governments out there thinking there can ever be a fair, even-handed fight against Israel.

jane

Saddam Hussein committed another mortal sin which helped seal his fate when he announced in 2000 that he would no longer accept dollars for oil being sold under the Oil-for-Food program and switched to euros as Iraq's oil export currency. From then on the drumbeats for war began under the pretext of non-existent WMD and routing out the non-existent Al-Qaeda terrorists from Iraq in the wake of the oh-so-convenient 9/11 Attacks. Saddam stood to improve oil revenues by trading in euros which were rising against the flagging US dollar. No sooner had the hideous spectacle that was "Mission Accomplished" occurred in May 2003, when a Financial Times article in June 2003 confirmed that Iraqi oil sales returning to the international market were trading once more in petrodollars. That was the mission accomplished.

Similarly, Iran rolled out their oil bourse in Kish in 2008 in a limited capacity trading in only oil derived products but eventually plan to trade in crude oil direct when all the kinks in the system have been ironed out. Tehran plans to establish a 4th oil market that will be in direct competition with the NYMEX NYC and the ICE London. Iraq and Iran both sit on some of the largest proven reserves in the world. Hence, we hear the drumbeats for war and the non-existent nuclear capabilities hysteria all over again.

richard vajs

Adding to Saddam Husseins' "sins" – championing the downbeaten Palestinians, providing them with refuge in Iraq, and (in what infuriated the Israelis) providing funds to Palestian families who had their homes destroyed in collective punishment because they might have had sons involved in resisting the Occupation.

conumishu

Palestinians through PLO, vastly representative then, committed financial suicide when their political leadership backed Saddam's Kuwait invasion. The lucrative opportunities there were lost once the Kuwait regime was restored and Palestinians were expelled.

james

Sorry crooked, it is your utter ignorance calling islam names. Its the so called western "civilized" people that created Al-Qaeda if you remember, so can I call it the ugly face of christianity? Absolutely not, but people like you use anti islam terms and propaganda very freely, almost in every sentence you write. Enquiring minds want t know why?

jojo

I agree on most what you had said. However, your dead wrong on calling arabs as terrorists.The west you speak of, are the real terrorist nations. Go back and re-read Justin's major remark:
" But that’s not a bad thing if your strategy is to divide and conquer."
Bravo!

heath

The divide and conquer strategy is as burnt out as the CIA lair in Benghazi, Unless you have an army in place you have no hope (and even with an a army its very iffy as Iraq shows) and will last as long as you can spend your own countries money.

philadelphialawyer

These protests remind me very much of the fake "Green Revolution" in Iran….mostly upper middle class, mostly composed of westernized elites, the few with computers and twitters and so forth. The type of folks Western media just love, and who know how to work that media.

Like the regime in Iran however, Erdogan and his party actually have the support of the urban and rural masses.

I see these protests as much ado about not very much. Really, who cares if a shopping mall is built in one corner of Istanbul, besides a few urban elites? More like the battle of Central Park (Robert Moses building Tavern on the Green vs the upper class moms who's kids used the existing playground) than anything else.

In any event, as an American, I really don't care whether Erdogan, his party, the current regime, or even the current constitution stands or falls in turkey. Really, I don't care much about Turkey period. Why should I? Who runs their country, and how they run it, is their affair, and since NATO now longer serves any purpose, even that excuse to care/intervene is gone. Why did Erdogan get the works? It's nobody's business but the Turks!

Parbes

NATO may "no longer serve any purpose" using objective logic – but it most definitely is NOT gone! In fact, NATO is currently being EXPANDED and STRENGTHENED by the U.S. elites. So obviously, THEY have some plans and designs that YOU are out of the loop on – which is also the reason why the third-rate would-be Oriental dictator Erdogan is such a darling of the U.S. government and neocons, the Saudi/Wahhabi/Muslim Brotherhood crowd, and the entire presstitute Western "mainstream media"….
As for "not caring who runs Turkey and how" – you should care that a large, 80-million strong nation like Turkey located on the doorstep of Europe is run by secular people rather than a terror-exporting, neo-Ottoman Islamist thug like Erdogan because: 1. You're supposed to be a Westerner; and 2. Out of basic decency.

philadelphialawyer

As for your first par, I quite agree. NATG should no longer be an excuse to intervene, but it is.

On your second par. still disagree. I don't care who runs Turkey or who wants to run it. That's the affair of the Turks, not me, an American. I am a Westerner, so what? That means I think "western" ideas must predominate everywhere? Um, no. "Basic decency" to me, means non interference in the affairs of others. YMMV.

As for terrorism exporting, I've heard that song and dance too many times, my friend. "Terrorism" is the new :communism. Don't like someone? Want the US to help you get rid of them? Well then, just call them a "terrorist!" I see no terrorism coming out of Turkey. If it were, my first response would be to not let any Turks in. My second response would be limited acts of self defense. Only if the existence of the US was threatened would I consider widescale intervention to be appropriate. By the way, that response to terrorism, which is actually enshrined in international law, was first formulated by our own Daniel Webster.

Parbes

You "see no terrorism coming out of Turkey"? Are you SURE? Have you been following international news properly? The current Turkish government is directly involved in rendering all sorts of aid to the Al Qaida-affiliated Islamic terrorists ravaging Syria for the past couple of years – for the sole reason that the Syrian Baath Party government is Alawite in origin, and secular. The Turkish government and secret services have also been giving underhanded, but very real, help and support to Islamist terrorists and "insurgents" in Russia's North Caucasus for many years (though to be fair, that started long before Erdogan came to power, of course…)

Oswaldwasalefty

The key difference is that the Turkish protesters aren't going to be getting any outside help from Washington and its allies to destabilize Turkish society.

philadelphialawyer

Which is how it should be.

smallstonewall

Young Turks were genocidal -but apparently their hearts were in the right place? What did Hitler have to say about this time period? And just how many German officers/observers/advisers in Turkey would later make up the ranks of the SS?

The Treaty of Lausanne came after Kemal and his nationalists stormed out of Treaty for Sevres in protest. Sevres treaty was hardly etched in stone (not all parties had signed yet), and instead, in the process of delay. Kemal and the nationalist didn't like the way Turkey was being partitioned, and seeing how much of the bounty and gold Turks had stolen and hid in German banks was already handed over to the Brits, there wasn't much for resources. But there wasn't much for resources anywhere. All armies were essentially exhausted and all parties– sans Kemal — assumed they were in the phase of concessions. Kemal declared WAR and massacres began again

And Kemal was much more dependent on US Ambassador Mark Bristol than a great many in the US or TU will ever admit regarding the Treaty of Lausanne. Certainly more than the Soviet Russians a year earlier. Inconvenient as it were, the Treaty of Kars happened before the Turkish Republic was officially a sovereign country. Just a little twist. And Stalin hand played the largest part, but that takes away the pizazz when saying 'Soviet Russia'. And the Turk gold in Germans banks the Germans were required to turn over to the Brits? There are claims on that stole 'treasure' as stolen property, much like the land the US Air Force base has leased for decades. All of that's in the court here in the US of A.

But little of this history has really to do with what's currently happening against Erdogan and his attempts at consolation of power. But loosely drawing on the formation of modern Turkey certainly gives the current protesters political legitimacy doesn't it?

Parbes

What are you trying to say exactly? Your little diatribe here reads like a bunch of muddled, incomprehensible gibberish. If you're trying to question the anti-imperialist credentials of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which were amply proven by ACTIONS, not just words – then sorry, you're nothing but another cheap lying historical revisionist. And: "loosely drawing on the formation of modern Turkey certainly gives the current protesters political legitimacy"? So you're against the secular democratic protesters in Turkey and on the side of the Islamist thug dictator Erdogan and his goons, then? Those people in Turkey, unlike the sharia reactionary "rebels" of Syria, Libya etc., are the REAL "democratic protesters"!

smallstonewall

Don't be a moron answering your own questions. Giving thumbs up or down, as you jump to conclusion like some aggrandizing comment thread militant looking for a fight.

Let me spell out my challenge to the original OP as simply as possible:

1) Protest are not connected to Kemal and the formation of Turkey as Raimondo implied. Just because zealots like yourself idolize him doesn't make the protest so; and 2) the protest today are not Kemal's attack against Imperialism or the Ottoman, or blah blah. blah evil cliche platitude..

BUT and it's a big BUT, But making such historical ties makes the protest against Erdogan the Islamist warmongering lackey for US look all the more impressive especially when you have to go up against jackboot thugs with a woody for violence. Tea Party evoked founding fathers of USA to give themselves a set of impressive credentials that their own actions AND deeds have yet to live up to today.

3)US Ambassador Bristol was every bit a key part to restructuring the Treaty of Lausanne to fit Kemal's desires. More so than the Soviets (as JR asserts) who weren't even signature to the treaty. In fact, they signed the Treaty of Kars. Soviets would later contest the Treaty of Kars saying Eastern Turkey should be theirs and that the treaty wasn't bidding because Turkey wasn't a state at the time. Ironically all the Western Turks I know have shown nothing but dismissal toward the eastern region.

4) Young Turks -romanticized by JR in the OP– their genocide of Armenians inspired Hitler to write love poetry…no, alas, instead, to commit to the Holocaust.

The Turks want secularism. The war party wants zealots because zealots tend to fight harder without thinking. Palestine/Isreali conflict (and I don't give a hoot if I offend some antiwar readers) has more of a bearing on Shi'ite influence because the Secularist do not presently bring enough justice to this very seemingly hopeless conflict. If the US Administrations have conflict with Shia Islam, the best thing to do is act in good faith on this Isreali/Palestinian front instead of using Syria as a killing field. Syria is in fact too nations, reduce the bloodshed.

dink

typo – two nations

bobajemi

Justin,
All this verbage and no mention of the Armenian Genocide ( the centennial commemoration is soon here 2015) – the first Genocide by a modern state and a prototype of the Holocaust of hitler; the wholesale slaughter of Greeks, Kurds and Assyrians by these Turks, the attempted final destruction of Russian Armenia by Attaturk (crypto Jew) as the western powers started to sniff oil from Iraq and turned a blind eye towards reparations and a mandate for Armenia.
A leopard never changes his spots.
Let's not follow our mad imperialist war party and their neocon chorus chanting what a beacon of light "modern" Turkey is, but recognize that it is rather a din that is marred by Genocide, it's denial and it's likely recurrence.

nomange

Turkey's prosperity right now is deceptive, and has been primarily due to a real estate bubble, which has been causing economic pain to those sectors unable to keep up with rising housing prices. Erdogan's family and cronies are heavily invested and have been cashing in on it, through highly lucrative contracts obtained because of their political office or access- for example, the mall project in Taksim Square would be developed by a company owned by the Mayor of Istanbul, and Erdogan's son-in-law has major contracts to develop north of Istanbul. Erdogan has also been attempting to perpetuate his personal political power by amending the constitution, in order to transfer power to the Presidency, which he will be seeking after his term as Premier expires.

Erdogan's misadventures in Syria, with Turkey as the US-NATO's proxy and pawn, have caused very real consternation and anger in the country, especially since the Turkish and Syrian peoples had previously co-existed in peace and in the border area had ethnic ties. The general perception is that this war would not have happened but for the U.S. and NATO. As for the economic costs and social dislocation in Turkey arising from the war, there are now hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria in border villages; and the has been further inflamed by the terrorist attack some weeks ago killing almost 50 people. While Erdogan blamed it on Syria, it was later proven to have been caused by the jihadists. Ironically, the Turkish people are now chafing under the same type of authoritarian rule blamed on Assad, that allegedly triggered the Syrian crisis, namely failing to listen to the appeals of demonstrators, and instead responding with a harsh measures. While Assad's popularity is now soaring, Erdogan's has begun to plummet.
Also, Erdogan has been extendinv his control over even individual religious and social matters normally off limits to a secular government- as an example, the recent prosecution of Fazil Say, one of Turkey's most famous pianists, for public statements allegedly "insulting" Islam; or, the imprisonment of over 75 journalists for independent reporting critical of the government, or the prosecution (and, in some instances, vigilante killings) of historians and journalists who openly wrote about the Armenian genocide.

So, the disaffection with Erdogan is real, not superficial, and it is based on many reasons.

I have no idea how to post comments on the "new format" of Justin's column as published on Friday. I realize that in online culture, change for change's sake is always considered a positive, but for those of us who are visually impaired, change without very clear directions as to how to accommodate and adjust to the change renders the previously useful to be utterly useless.

Justin Raimondo is the editorial director of Antiwar.com, and a senior fellow at the Randolph Bourne Institute. He is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, and writes a monthly column for Chronicles. He is the author of Reclaiming the American Right: The Lost Legacy of the Conservative Movement [Center for Libertarian Studies, 1993; Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2000], and An Enemy of the State: The Life of Murray N. Rothbard [Prometheus Books, 2000].